About the EPE TIG

Environmental Program Evaluation

Topical Interest Group

EPE TIG members’ interests lie broadly at the intersection of evaluation and the environment, including but not limited to education, climate change, policy, conservation, energy, transportation, and global environmental issues. We share a personal and professional passion for the environment, and for promoting a stronger community of practice in environmental evaluation. The members of the TIG are an inspiring, resourceful, and dynamic community of evaluators – many of whom are leaders in their field. New practitioners learn from the experience of long time evaluators, and more established practitioners learn from the diverse perspectives of an ever-growing member base. To get a sense of what the EPE TIG is all about, check out our upcoming events and our resources (note: these pages are in development).

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AEA Annual Conference 2026 | EPE-themed sessions & posters

Sessions

Thursday | 10:15-11:15am Eastern US

  • The Journey Behind the Impact: Building Legacy Evaluation Through a 12-Year Environmental Justice Retrospective | Tasha Parker, Ph.D., LSCSW, MPA - Institute of Development
  • You Got This: Helping Environmental Movement Leaders Make Decisions with Real-Time Evaluation Tools | Chris Allan, MA - Ajabu Advisors and Michelle Eckman, MSc - Integrity Acts and Mass Audubon

Thursday | 5:00-6:00pm Eastern US

  • Building Capacity through Local Evaluation Clinics: a Cross-sector Toolkit and Model from Environmental Education | Evan Kuras - Data+Soul, Kathryn Stevenson, Monifa Beverly, PhD - Beverly Consulting Group, Michelle Eckman, MSc - Integrity Acts and Mass Audubon, Lydia Sellers, and Elizabeth Whitcher

Posters

Thursday | 10:15-11:15am Eastern US

  • Building Organizational Trust and Strengthening Networks to Improve Wellbeing Among Farming Communities | Vivien Ahrens, PhD
  • Enabling Team Science Impact Assessment in Agri-Food R&D Through an AI-Enabled Impact Calculator | Peter Pena, David DeYoung, Jane Payumo, PhD - Michigan State University, and George Smith
  • Enhancing Agricultural Research and Extension for a Sustainable Agri-Food System: Strategic Insights from India | Satyabrata Mohanty
  • Evaluating Cross-Institutional Collaboration in a Children's Environmental Health Research Translation Center | Yuchan Cao
  • Expanding the Value Definition: A Low-Income Clean Energy Program Evaluation Study | Cynthia Austin

Thursday | 2:30-3:30pm Eastern US

  • Improving Evaluation Accuracy for Understanding Youth Agriscience Career Pathway Outcomes: Evidence from YEA-Juntos Initiative | Autumn Cano-Guin - NC State University/NC Cooperative Extension/NC 4-H, Joy Alcantara Chuquiruna, H. Luz McNaughton Reyes, Leslie Mouchet, Kristin Bedell, and Diana Urieta
  • Lessons learned from an evaluation of a conservation agriculture program in Rwanda | Nichola Driver, PhD, Jeff Miller, PhD, Katie George, MPS, and Evanna Ojeda, MPS

Thursday | 3:45-4:45pm Eastern US

  • A Participatory Evaluation in Urban Agriculture: The Chicago Community Growers Program | Christina Carr - DePaul University, Adonnis Platt, Howard Rosing, PhD - DePaul University, and Lavidrah Lumayo Shumilah
  • Learning and Adapting Traditional Evaluation Approaches to Address Increasing Complex Agricultural Health and Safety Issues | Annie Keeney, Morgan Valley, and Lorann Stallones

Thursday | 5:00-6:00pm Eastern US

  • The Evaluation of Graduate Education through the Lens of College of Agriculture Administrators | Aaron Golson, Virginia Brown, DrPH - University of Georgia, and James Anderson
  • What Happens Next? A Seven-Year Mixed-Method Evaluation of Veteran Pathways into Agriculture | Sonika Poudel and Tiffany Drape, PhD - Virginia Tech

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                ANNOUNCEMENTS                
Our next monthly member meeting is Friday, October 16th from 2-3pm Eastern US time - Join us for an AEA Conference Preview!
Note: This meeting is on a different Friday than usual to accommodate CREA and NAAEE conferences. 
During this session, we will share about the EPE-organized and -themed happenings at the AEA annual conference in November. Link to register for this and future monthly meetings for 2026: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ncYrf-rBQpit5tUV_n7SSg#/... Once you register, you can add the events to your calendar directly. If you've already registered for monthly series, your regular meeting link should still work, even though it is on a different day.
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Our annual TIG meeting is Monday, November 9th from 4-5pm Eastern US time!
Register for the meeting here (unique link!); we will share more details about this meeting soon.
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The AEA Annual Conference is November 16-20th in Charlotte, NC - Join us for an EPE TIG Field Trip!
Following the success of last year, the EPE TIG leadership team will be hosting a field trip with a local nonprofit organization, CleanAIRE NC, on Friday, November 20th between 12-3pm Eastern US time! We will learn about their environmental justice work and have some useful roundtable discussions about their evaluation practice. More details to come.
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